Page 36 of Raise Up, Heart
“I’m just saying it’s a risk we don’t need to take. Someone could see you! You could get hurt!” Cole kicks his pants off.
“It’s called an escape vehicle, Cole,” Damon says, coming forward to push Cole’s shirt from his shoulders. His face changes as his eyes move over Cole’s body. “Jesus,” he says, reaching out to touch Cole’s chest.
Glancing down, Cole sees that he’s as bruised and scratched as Damon is, if not more so.
Damon lets out a soft breath. “I turn into something inhuman when I’m in you. I want you so much.”
Cole pushes Damon toward the couch, shoving him down and climbing on top of him, rubbing his bare ass over Damon’s jeans before reaching down to unbutton and unzip. “You don’t need the car,” Cole says.
Damon reaches for a strip of condoms that they left on the couch earlier, rolls one on his cock, and groans as Cole slides down on him. “I’m keeping the car,” he says, and Cole gives up, too overwhelmed with watching Damon’s face as they fuck to argue anymore.
Now, though, Cole is feeling antsy about it. What if Damon leaves the cabin? He said they needed more condoms. He said they needed more food. Cole countered that he’d bring them with him when he came back, but Damon is stubborn, and Cole knows it. It’s part of what Cole’s always loved about him. Cole fingers his cell phone and curses that Damon doesn’t have a phone of any kind in the cabin.
“I couldn’t risk trying to buy a cell phone without identification. And with what money? Besides, what am I going to do with it?” Damon asks when Cole confronts him about the lack of ability to communicate when they’re apart. “Order pizza?”
“You like pizza,” Cole says.
“I like no one knowing I’m here more. I’m dead, remember?”
Cole sees the signs for the prison and slows down. He’s not only nervous about Damon, but he’s pretty torn up about seeing Grandpa. It’s been a long time, and he swore back then that they were done, that he’d never see Grandpa again. It’s felt good all of these years to stick to that promise. But he knows what he has to do, and his grandfather’s history cannot be allowed to take the center stage here. Cole must retain control of the situation. Everything depends on it.
The prison is intimidating—concrete and grim. The barbed wire and armed guards on watch towers leave him with a sour taste in his mouth. So he clenches his ass muscles to feel how sore he still is, a reminder of why he’s here, and he pushes his hand into his coat pocket to feel the stone.
“Come on, Cole. Stay focused,” Cole says to himself. “Go in. Don’t give him an inch. Get what you want. Get out. You can do this.”
His phone rings as he pulls into the visitor’s parking space close to the entrance. It’s Rosanna. Cole can’t take the call. Not now. He pushes the ‘ignore call’ option and drops the phone into his pocket next to the rock.
The check-in process is frustrating. Now that he’s here, he wants to do this and get it over with, but first Cole’s asked to put all of his personal belongings in a small bowl and to walk through the metal detector. Putting the stone heart into the bowl feels really wrong. He keeps it close at all times for a reason, and Cole keeps his eye on it as he walks through the metal detector.
“Is there something special about this rock, Mr. Hart?” Cole has brought his birth certificate and driver’s license, which shows his full name, as proof of his identity.
“Yes,” Cole says. “I’d rather you didn’t touch it.”
He knows as soon as the words leave his mouth that they are just the excuse the guards need to pick up the rock and examine it more closely. A rage burns in his gut as he watches them hand it back and forth to each other.
“Assholes,” he whispers under his breath.
The guard’s eyes narrow, and his hand goes to his gun. Cole’s heart thump-thumps in his chest, and he’s washed over with a cold fear.
“Never mind, Peters,” a voice calls.
Cole turns to see a man in a white button-down shirt, sleeves rolled up to his elbow, and a stern expression walking toward them. “Mr. Hart has an explanation, I’m certain.”
Cole says, “It’s a rock. Nothing else. It’s important to me. That’s all.”
He stands tall, ignoring the rush of adrenaline in his veins, trying to play it cool, because he almost blew it. And over what? A rock? Damon is what matters. The rock is dispensable now.
Cole swallows. “Just a rock. It was a gift from someone I love. Someone who died.”
“We all have things like that, right, Peters?” the man says. “Warden Madison,” he says to Cole, sticking out his hand. “Now, I believe we have some business to take care of?”
Cole nods and takes the rock back from the guard. It feels different. Not the same. And when he puts it back in his coat pocket, he knows he doesn’t need it anymore. If he has to, he can let it go. He has Damon’s heart to care for instead.
The room the warden has chosen is close to the main office, and Warden Madison says that he’ll bring Grandpa in shortly. Cole supposes the room might be bugged and there are any number of other dangerous possibilities. But the warden seems to have a healthy respect for the money Cole has plied him with, making it clear in a scraping way that he has always endeavors to make Grandpa’s life here as easy as possible. He says it as though Cole is going to mete out some payback or declare a vendetta if he hasn’t seen to that. Cole lets Warden Madison believe he has that kind of power. Besides, after today, he will.
The room is small. There are no windows and there’s only one door. The table in front of him is gray metal, and the chair is incredibly uncomfortable, but Cole relishes the pain in his ass, closing his eyes to think of Damon’s face when he comes, of the heat in his eyes, and the low, slithering hotness of his voice.
Cole doesn’t have to wait long. He opens his eyes as the door slides and Grandpa is led in.
